


Non Avis Aevum

by doritoFace1q



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Bad Wolf, Canon Rewrite, Character Study, Gallifreyan Culture (Doctor Who), POV Alternating, Post-Time War (Doctor Who), References to Canon, The Doctor (Doctor Who) is a Mess, Time War Angst (Doctor Who), Unconventional Format, Wingfic, and a drama queen, timeless children? i don't know them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-03
Updated: 2020-03-03
Packaged: 2021-02-23 03:21:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23004940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doritoFace1q/pseuds/doritoFace1q
Summary: Renegades, humans, and flightless wings—ironically fitting for those who'd rather flee.orThe Doctor has wings, and would prefer not to have them seen. This does not go as planned.
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s), The Doctor & Jackie Tyler, The Doctor & Mickey Smith, The Doctor & Wilfred Mott, The Doctor (Doctor Who)/Rose Tyler, The Doctor/Jack Harkness, The Doctor/The Master (Doctor Who)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 72





	Non Avis Aevum

**Author's Note:**

> AU/headcanon that renegade Time Lords are given wings (that don't work) as a mark of shame. The Doctor, naturally, does not take this well.
> 
> Basically: a long-winded, mostly Ten-centric, character study-esque thing focusing on how he (and choice companions) feel about them.
> 
> And angst. Because why not.

His wings are light in his eighth body, barely noticeable despite the periodic jolting and flickering of the shimmer. He knows, somewhere in the back of his mind, that they’re brown—the same light, downy colour as his hair. He knows that the secondaries are still clipped, and the primaries still broken, knows in the same way he knows that he’s ticklish under the left armpit and has a freckle behind his right ear.

It doesn’t last. The War starts, and, suddenly, they’re heavier than he could have ever thought possible. Each scream, each life, each planet, each blast leaves a mark. The flames charring the edges of the splintered feathers, and phantom weight of blood drags him down like a rock to the bottom of the ocean. He tries running, as he’d run so many times before, but the War is everywhere, spread across space and time. It leaves lifeless planets and burnt-out stars in its wake, consuming civilizations in its flames. It singes those who escape, and scorches those unfortunate enough to survive. The Time Lords spread their conflict through the universe, and this is the one battle he can never outrun.

And then he meets Cass.

They’re heavier this time—heavier than the leather jacket slung over his shoulder, worn beyond its years, heavier than the gun he aims and fires ( _he’s breaking so many promises_ ), heavier than the belt he takes from Cass’s body and slings over his shoulder. They’re soaked with blood that was never there and they’re _wrong_ , wrong like everything else about this body.

They burn, burn like the fires of regeneration, burn the way his skin prickles like a thousand needles. His blood is too hot, his hearts too fast, his hands out of sync with his mind, and the hairs on the back of his neck are perpetually raised, every muscle stiff and on alert. He burns like the flames of the twin suns, like the ship as it goes down, down, down, down, _downdowndown_ —

The shimmer breaks before he’s even reached the TARDIS and he tears it from the nape of his neck with trembling, gnarled fingers. The wings unfurl, shaking, and they’re shrivelled and scarred, scraggly and frail. Broken feathers, grey as the beard he only just realized he had, cling desperately to flesh already marred by burns that may well have been there for centuries. The barbs are snapped, the vanes torn and dishevelled.

They drag him down as he stands over the burning battlefields, casting long shadows across razed and fallen armies. They are drooping and weak, but stiff with the same coiled strength as the rest of him. Feeble in the way a sword is brittle and a cannon clumsy. It doesn’t matter. There’s no one around to see them anymore.

He sees a button, red as the rivers of blood that must surely be dripping down the dead and dying plumes, and he presses it. Billions of screams echo through his mind and he screams with them, and then he’s burning.

When he wakes up, there’s a new shimmer sitting on the console.

It’s strange, this new body. He’s still strong, he can feel it in the shift of his shoulders and see it in his hands (he likes hands, he thinks), hands that are rough with the scars that were never always there. He kicks the bandolier away from him, watches it skitter across the grating of the TARDIS floor (she redecorated while he was out), bile rising in his throat. His clothes follow, and he stumbles, dragging his hands across the rough walls of coral (how long was he out?) and stone. He listens to the hum of the ship, and he realizes his head is empty, and he falls and he screams.

He finds another jacket, close to the old one (is it really old if it was only mere seconds ago?), but not quite. There are no belts, no buckles, and the leather is black, not brown, clean and new. His wings flutter when the lining of the jacket brush against them and he jerks at the unexpected sensitivity. It’s the first time he notices the wings in the new body, and he runs a hand over them, calloused fingers dragging over of glossy feathers. They shudder, thick layers of muddy brown rippling, the muscle underneath flexing (you never would have thought that they’d looked close to crumbling from his shoulders mere moments ago). Mud’s a good word for it—murky, medium brown (is that what his hair’s like, too?). He runs a hand over his head and feels the scratch of close-cropped stubble. Then he remembers what his hand (not this hand, not this him, but still him, and isn’t that the same thing?) has done and—

And the alarms are blaring and something’s going on and he’s running, running like he’s always run, throwing new switches and cranking new controls and the TARDIS is spinning and oh, aren’t there supposed to be six pilots flying this thing?

The ship jolts and he grabs onto the new console, the edges digging into the new skin of his new palms and his new feet clad in new boots skitter across the new metal grates and the only thing covering the awful, echoing silence in his head are the alarms (loud and piercing, like something plucked from the early 21st century, nothing like the echoing bells and blaring horns he’d grown accustomed to, those are new too, then) resounding through the cavernous new halls and oh, are they crashing?

He slams his hand down on a button (it’s small, round, and blue, and for that, he is grateful) and the ship rights herself. He stumbles and falls onto his rear as the ship lands with a thud that shakes the Vortex (he would have gotten into such big trouble for that only a few hours ago). He’s up and running before the wheezing of the engines has even stopped and he’s throwing the door open and—

_Oh_.

He sniffs, nostrils flaring. Fryer oil, gasoline fumes, dry grass, the sour smell of cats, and the towering fury of angry shoppers that all minimum wage employees cower before. _Earth_. Early 21st century, London proper.

A nudge at the back of his mind startles him out of his shock (the streets are buzzing with life, and someone bumps into him and oh dear, how long has it been since he’s seen life?), and a hand (new hands, he likes them) flies to the back of his neck. There’s a small electric shock and the wings vanish (shimmer shimmer _whoosh_ ). There’s another nudge (it’s been less than a day, this shouldn’t be normal, he shouldn’t _be here_ ) and he’s running, new arms buried up to his elbows in his new pockets (they’re bigger on the inside) and he’s pulling things out and why is there a full pot of tea in there and _sonic_ (new sonic, wonder where he got it)!

His head suddenly whips around (good instincts, this body—he doesn’t think about where they came from) and he sees a shop window, packed with yellowing old dummies—dummies! His feet are moving and his hands are moving and then the door is crashing open and there’s a mess of wires in his hand (he’s pretty sure it’ll work as a bomb) and there’s someone up ahead and oh, mannequins, lovely.

He grabs her hand (hands are definitely this him’s thing) and shouts his first word. “Run!”

_“Doctor, what’s that?”_

_“What’s what?”_

_“That thing on your neck—that little disk, with the blinking light.”_

_“Oh—nothing. Just a little thing to connect me to the TARDIS. So I never get lost, see?”_

_“What, so it’s just a fancy GPS?”_

_“It—yeah. Sure.”_

_“You’re lying.”_

_“Am not!”_

_“Yes, you are! I can tell—hey, give me back my chips!”_

She watched from her perch on the jumpseat, legs crossed, a cup of tea in one hand, as he tinkered beneath the console. A thud echoed from below, followed shortly by a loud oath. Rose giggled as the Doctor emerges, grimacing as he rubbed his smarting forehead.

“Oi!” he scowled at her, but there was a twinkle in his eye. There was a smear of grease on his cheek and her giggling only intensified. “What?” he frowns. She gestured at her own cheek, and he swiped at his, leaving another smudge.

“No, other side.” She grinned as he rubs at it, succeeding only in smearing it even further. “No, it’s—you know what? It’s fine.” She chuckled.

He rolled his eyes, the corner of his own lip twitching as he bended over to grab what Rose _thinks_ might be a futuristic version of a spanner, but could just as easily have been a pair of mangled pliers. She raised her mug to her lips as her eyes wander over him, landing, as they had been lately, on the little disk at the base of his neck. She’d asked him about it, once, but had received only a passable lie in return (she’s only slightly offended that he hadn’t put more effort into at least pretending to be convincing)—GPS, her arse. She found herself almost transfixed, watching the little blue light as it blinked methodically, the faint light reflected off the supple finish on the collar of his jacket.

She wanted to ask again, but, every time she made to do so, the memory of the first time would flash through her mind, and she would hesitate. It wasn’t so much the lie that bothered her (Who knew how much of what he spouted out while they were strolling arm-in-arm through the forests of remote alien planets was true? Certainly not her), but the look in his eyes. It was different—different from the unfathomable depths she could only catch glimpses of, nothing like the unimaginable pain lurking behind every quip and grin, a far cry from his moments of sorrow or fear. No—what it _did_ remind her of was the ice-cold rage that burnt even when it wasn’t directed her, the unbridled storm striking with deadly accuracy that professional marksmen could only dream of. In fact, she had once considered, staring up at the ceiling of her bedroom, it looked almost like—

A noise not unlike a thousand amplifiers exploding at once tore Rose from her thoughts and the jumpseat jolted as the Doctor yanked himself out from beneath the console, banging his knee against it. He wrinkled his nose as he sat up, waving a cloud of black smoke away from his face. “Bugger,” he grunted.

“What was that?” Rose asked, gaze flicking only momentarily to the little disk as she leaned over his shoulder, trying to get a glimpse at the minefield of wires beneath the console.

“Nothing you need to worry about,” he said absently, turning a panel covered in more blinking lights than London during Christmastime over in his hands, frowning as he moved his sonic over it. “Just need to reconfigure the spatio-temporal accelerator and get some new wiring for the fuel gauge—ouch!”

An explosion of sparks erupted from the panel in the Doctor’s hands as half the modules on it suddenly burst apart. He dropped it with a small yelp, shaking his hand out. The dim green and gold lights in the control room flickered erratically, and so did the disk.

Rose let out a startled shriek as _something_ suddenly burst from the Doctor’s back, knocking the mug out of her hands. She stumbled out of the jumpseat, back slamming into a pillar as she stared, frozen with shock, at the thrashing _things_ jutting from the Doctor. No—they couldn’t be—

The Doctor swore, the sonic whirring as he waved it about in the air. The console stopped sputtering, and smoke began pouring out from beneath it in a steady stream. The lights stopped pretending that they were at a rave, and the little device on the back of the Doctor’s neck came back to life with a small beep. The dark masses were gone before Rose could blink, and the Doctor whirled around, tucking his sonic back in his pocket.

“Ah.” He pursed his lips in his trademark oops-have-I-done-something-wrong smile and he clapped his hands behind his back. “Well. Bit unfortunate, that, but there shouldn’t be too many things out of place. But if you crack an egg and the yolk’s purple and shaped like a Petruvian firestar, you should probably—”

“Doctor.” Rose took a step forwards, a hand still resting tentatively on the column she’d been pressing herself against.

“—should only take an hour to put back together. Here, I’ll take you to New London right the moment it’s done. Best chips in the M87—”

“Doctor,” Rose said louder. He snapped his jaw shut. “Doctor, what—” She glanced down at the shattered mug, tea still dripping forlornly through the grates from its pieces. “What was that?”

“Ah.” He glanced at it awkwardly. “Yes. Right. Sorry. I’ll get you a new one—”

“Not the bloody mug, Doctor,” she interrupted. “Doctor, there were. . . on your back. You had—”

A flash of _something_ crossed the Doctor’s face, and Rose blinked. For a second, it had almost looked like—

_Shame_.

“Nothing to worry about!” he said perkily, bending down and scooping up the shattered mug in one hand. “Listen, just—well, the TARDIS might be a bit finicky after all that, so maybe if you went back to your room for a bit while I get it fixed up—wouldn’t want you getting trapped in an endless maze of hallways or anything, after all.” Another burst of smoke exploded from beneath the console, accompanied by a grating wheeze which must, Rose reasoned, have translated to an overexaggerated cough in timeship-speak. “I’ll just toss these out, shall I?” He gestured at the broken mug in his hands. And then he was gone.

Something on the ground caught Rose’s eye and she knelt. Her eyes widened as she plucked it from where it lay on top of the Doctor’s scattered pile of tools, lustrous brown sheen reflecting the sea-green light of the central column,

In her hand was a single, clipped feather.

He’s burning. He’s burning. He’s burning. He’s burning. He’s burning. He’s burning. He’s burning. He’s—

She’s safe.

They’re gone.

Scattered.

Atoms.

She’s lying on the ground, hair scattered around her head in a golden halo (gold, gold like the suns that are no longer there, gold like the ring on Pete Tyler’s finger, gold like her eyes, gold like _the_ Eye, so bright bright _brightbright_ so bright it burns, burns like the suns, burns like the skies, burns like the planets smoldering at his feet) and her eyes are closed. Her hands are limp (he held her hands), and it was almost too much for imagination to fathom that, mere moments ago, those hands could have taken apart armies (did take apart armies) and dismantle life with a snap of its fingers (she waved her hands and they were gone no screams no cries no _burnburnburn_ ).

His wings burn. The shimmer is breaking, circuits overloaded by the raw power of the radiation burning through his body. The disk sparks with blue electricity and the shimmer flickers and towering shadows are thrown over the console. His wings flap once, twice, and a feather drifts loose and her hair flutters and she blinks her eyes open.

The shimmer flickers again and the wings are gone. She sits up and she’s speaking. She’s important, he knows. Knew before the graffiti, before the Game Station, before Father’s Day, and before he met her. He’s never-always saw-didn’t see her never-everywhere. He thinks of a red button, of glowing gold (he’s burning up from the inside out), of Daleks, of chips and the girl who’s slowly sitting up and talking (time is moving so slowly around him—his mind is moving so fast), of the Heart of the Tardis, of a Slitheen calling herself Margaret, of a Rift, of a him that wasn’t him, and the burnt orange sky—

His feathers are glowing, he knows. Each twitch of the invisible wings leaves vapour trails in its wake. He can’t see it but he knows, knows the same way he knows the little toe on his left foot is just a bit longer than his right, the same way he knows there’s an ethereal light (golden fire) building behind the blue of his irises (chips of melted ice chips Roseroserose London Powell Estates his father’s estates Master Academy Deca those two my fault killer Doctor renegade _Gallifrey_ )

The smell of artron energy is so strong it’s heady, and, were it any other time, he would be woozy.

He’s talking, he realizes—his mouth is moving, spitting out words he can’t recall forming in his mind (will he be a talker, next time?) and he’s smiling, and his head spins and all he can see is her, his beautiful Wolf look at her, she’s smiling, don’t stop smiling, see, I’m smiling, you made me smile (Barcelona) you always make me smile you’re important you’re Rose I—

_Bad Wolf_.

It’s like a spear of fire and ice and boiling acid, set ablaze by the hearts of a million suns, and it strikes him through, tearing through him like a volley of cannons breaking through a wall of paper. He stumbles backwards with a cry and Rose runs forwards Rose always running running towards him would she still run if she knew what he was would she run away—

The shimmer flickers again and her face lights up with the glow of the blazing feathers and he throws out a hand that shines like a dying star and yells for her to stay back. His wings flap and her hair whips around as if they were standing in a hurricane (storm storm Oncoming Storm it rages they die) and she’s staring at them and oh, Rose, please don’t look at them like that they’re not what you think they are not good not—

_Fantastic_. What else can he say?

He’s out of time (ironic, isn’t it?). He throws his head back and his wings are burning and he’s burning and everything is burning. He holds it back as much as he can (protect her protect him protect them never let them burn never let them feel the flames of the Time Lord’s—), and, for that, he burns. The shimmer explodes (he’s surprised it’s held up for so long) and light pours from the tip of each vane. It’s blinding and he feels like he’s on fire and _Rassilon_ , it hurts. He’s never died like this before.

He can’t think. All he knows is _burning_.

And, quite suddenly, he’s alive.

The first face he sees is always a special one.

A small whimper pulls Jackie out of her thoughts. The wet cloth is back in her hands in an instant and she dabbed at his forehead, lips pursed with worry. No hospitals, Rose had said, but if he kept up at this for much longer, she wasn’t sure they’d have much of a choice. She pushed sweat-soaked strands of hair away from his forehead and furrowed her brow—surely someone with skin that pale shouldn’t be that warm. He was warmer than room temperature, far warmer than the fifteen or so Celsius Rose had said he should be, and positively feverish.

_You woke me up too soon_ , he’d said. She shoved away the pang of guilt gnawing at her. What the bloody hell were they supposed to do? Sit there and wait for the killer Christmas tree to slice them into shreds? “Shoulda known better than to let you in here again,” she muttered, gently wiping the fresh sheen of sweat from his face. “Always trouble following you, there is.”

He shifted, just a little bit, brow furrowed tighter than a pair of off-brand jeans. He was shivering far too much to be lying so still, and his chest rose and fell with the erraticism of a stormy sea, faint, breaths rattling past parted lips. His wings twitched—oh, yeah, the bloody bastard had _wings_ now (or had he always had them?). Blimey, when had this become _normal_?

They were beautiful things, really—plain for even her to see, once she got over her shock. They were easily a few metres wide, spread awkwardly across the hastily cleared end tables, the tips just brushing the walls of the tiny room. She raised a hand and glanced at his pallid, tense face (a new face, too—this was mental). Her hand faltered for a moment before she slowly lowered it and laid it on top of a wing. When he didn’t move, she slowly ran her hand down the wing, staring in awe at the layers of sleek, dark feathers rippling beneath her hand. They were the same deep, hazel brown as his new hair (imagine that, the Doctor having hair), with undertones of red and gold. The smallest ones were barely the size of her palm, the longest stretching longer than her entire forearm. She paused when her fingers reached the lowest layers, the ones closest to the bottom. She gingerly ran the tip of a finger along the ragged edge of one of the longer ones—primaries, she thinks they’re called (or was it secondaries?). Feathers that had been sleek and healthy near the top of the wing tapered off, rough and ragged, almost as if someone had clipped them. No—they’d had a budgie, once, when Pete was still alive, and its wings, proper clipped, had looked nothing like these. _Torn off_.

The wing beneath her hand gave a sudden, almighty thrash and Jackie jerked her hand away as if shocked. The lamp on the bedside table rattled as the wing slammed into it and Jackie heard the low muttering from the sitting room falter.

“There, there,” she muttered, stroking the wing helplessly. The Doctor muttered something unintelligible under his breath, brow twitching. “It’s fine.” She glanced down at the sharp edges of his feathers’ barbs (like someone had snapped them off). “What happened, love?” The Doctor drew in a heavy, rattling breath, and his wings jerked. “What happened to you?”

There was a scraping noise of a chair being pushed back from the living room and the fridge door slammed. She pursed her lips, looking down at the Doctor’s new face—so much younger, all sharp cheekbones and delicate features where the old one had rough edges and rugged countenance. “Now, listen here, you,” she muttered, wiping at his damp forehead. “I don’t know squat ‘bout this ‘time and space’ thing, an’ I’m not about to pretend I understand the whole changing faces thing, either, but,” she leaned closer, taking one of the Doctor’s limp hands in hers (ice cold—there was no way anyone with a fever that high should have hands like that), “Doctor, I don’t care if you’re a Time Lord, a Martian, or a bloody angel, even. If you—” her voice broke and she squeezed his hand, fingers of her other hand curling into his wings. “Don’t you dare leave her, you chicken plonker,” she whispered, staring down at his sallow, sickly face. “Don’t you bloody _dare_.”

He hears it all. Of course he does. Hears Jackie’s neverending stream of whispered questions and meaningless consolations (chicken plonker, he’s never heard that one before), Mickey’s quiet curses (he knows he’ll never tell any of them he stood over his bed in the hour when Jackie had drifted off, staring loudly-quietly down at him, and maybe it’s better that way), and Rose’s awful, silent distance.

He feels everything, in the strange disconnection met in virtual reality (he’s never liked VR, he wonders if that’s changed, too) and out-of-in-a-body experiences. He feels _her_ dabbing away the sweat soaking him (burning him) to the skin, her warm, strong hands gripping his cold, may-well-be dead ones (funny thing, his right hand—had an entirely different timestream from the rest of him), her tears landing on his face and soaking through his borrowed pyjamas when she feels his first heart stop and _oh_ , that hurts (how do humans manage?). He feels the burn of her gaze on him (she would’ve burned but he burned instead and he’d go back and do it a hundred thousand times his Wolf her eyes _Rose_ ), knows she’s crying before she does, hears her sob into Jackie’s shoulder and no Rose, he hasn’t left, he’s not gone, he’s right here, he’s right here, he just needs time and they have all the Time in the universe Rose _please_ —

He hears the glass shattering, feels the turn of the Earth falter, feels the atmosphere ripple and shudder as the ship descends. He hears shouting, rumbling, the Cloister Bell ringing, and there are hands on him, under his arms, on his legs and they’re carrying him away. Fingers dig awkwardly into the ropy muscle where his wings melt into his shoulders and they’re being dragged across broken glass and _ouch_ , see, this is why he likes the shimmer.

The TARDIS might as well be screaming at him, but he’s too tired to make out what she’s saying. He hears Rose and Jackie arguing (a nice cup of tea would be nice does he like tea he doesn’t know yet he thinks he’d like some), the door swinging shut as Jackie leaves for more food (she does know he has a kitchen, right?). He hears the grating clank and creak as Rose paces, feels a tentative brush of hesitant fingers against his feathers (Ricky the idiot Mickey why does he care). The fingers jerk away fast enough that it’s like they were never there at all when Rose rounds the central column and they’re moving, what’s happening?

He hears Rose moving to the door and he wants to shout. _No, get back_ , he wants to tell her. _There’s something out there, and it’s not good_ , he wants to yell. _Run_ , he wants to cry. Runrunrunrunrunrunrunrun _runru_ —

She screams and Mickey runs after her. His limbs are limp and heavy and he still can’t move. There’s a sizzling sound and he smells smoke. He inhales, chest rising, and something smells good and it’s like there was a wall between him and the waking world and it crumbles.

His wings flutter and he opens his eyes.

“Here you go.” Mickey gave the plate a final rinse and passed it over to the Doctor.

“Ah.” He grinned, taking it. “Thank you, Mickey.”

Mickey nodded stiffly, picking up the next plate from the stack. He squeezed a drop of dish soap on it and began scrubbing it under the faucet. “Hey,” he said, firmly avoiding the Doctor’s gaze when he glanced up. “Can’t you just, I don’t know, sonic them plates clean? Then we wouldn’t have to do this?”

“Ah.” He can almost hear the grin in the alien’s voice. “Wish I could, but it doesn’t really work like that.” There’s a scuffing noise as he toes the ground with the tip of his new Converse, and they fall back into an awkward silence, punctuated only by the running water of the tap, the TV and laughter from the living room, and the occasional clink of a plate being put down.

“Are you alright, Mickey?” the Doctor suddenly asks.

Mickey snorted. “‘Bout normal, I guess. This how it’s like for you and Rose all the time? Spaceships, near-death situations, and swordfights?”

The Doctor chuckles, wiping a fork dry and dropping it in the drawer. “Nah,” he said. “ _Well_ ,” he cocked his head, wrinkling his nose in a way that the old Doctor probably would have rather drop dead than do. “Not always. _Well_ ,” he inhaled through his teeth, scratching the back of his neck. “Mostly. _Well_ —” Mickey snorted and the Doctor huffed. “First time meeting the Sycorax, though.”

Mickey rolled his eyes, rinsing the plate clean and passing it over. “Didn’t know you could use a sword,” he said.

_“There’s a lot you don’t know about me_ ,” the old Doctor would have said, before turning and leaving for the next twelve months, leaving only confusion in his wake.

“ _Well_ ,” this Doctor says, grinning easily. “Haven’t had to pick one up in a while.” A flash of something darker crossed his face for the briefest of moments. Then Mickey blinked, and it was gone.

“Huh,” Mickey settled on saying, handing over another plate, which the Doctor accepted with a nod. “What about the hand thing?” he asked, glancing down at the Doctor’s hands. “Didn’t know you could do that, either.”

“Only in the first fifteen hours of my regeneration,” the Doctor said. “Lots of leftover regeneration energy floating about—”

“Pilot fish,” Mickey remembered.

The Doctor nodded. “Yup. Enough to heal just about anything.”

“So. . .” Mickey racked his brains. “What if someone, like, stabbed you in both hearts. Could you fix that?”

“Theoretically,” the Doctor said. “Why?” he cocked a sculpted brow. “Are you going to stab me?”

Mickey snorted. “Nah.” Silence fell again, broken moments later by laughter floating in from outside the window.

Mickey cleared his throat. “So.”

The Doctor raised his eyebrow again, not looking up from his plate. “So?”

Mickey glanced at the trailing feather peeking out from beneath the hem of the Doctor’s coat. “Wings,” he finally said. “You’ve got bloody wings.”

The Doctor put the dry plate in the rack. “Yep.”

“Did you have ‘em before?” Mickey asked.

The Doctor’s voice was a bit stiffer when he replied, “Yep.”

“Were you hiding ‘em or something?” Mickey pressed.

“Mhm.” The Doctor’s lips were pursed tightly and he jerked Mickey’s plate sharply out of his hand before he’d even finished properly rinsing it.

“Why?”

The Doctor’s coat rippled, and there was a quiet rustling noise as his wings, pinned tightly to his back by the long garment, twitched. “Ah, well,” he said, giving the plate a harsh wipe. “Bit hard to blend in when I’ve got great, big, feathery things sticking out of my back, innit? Makes moving about easier, too. Shimmer with a built-in pocket dimension,” he explained, spotting Mickey’s confused look. “Like the TARDIS—sticks them somewhere else so they don’t knock things over and such.”

“So where’s that shimmer thing now?” Mickey asked.

The tail of the Doctor’s coat twitched, and Mickey was sure that his wings would be thrashing anxiously right now. “Broke,” he said far too casually. “I’m surprised it held up for that long, really. It was almost a hundred years old, you know—built it out of spare parts and an old pen on Naavinyr in the 34th century. Rush job, but it worked.”

“Blimey.” Mickey stared at the Doctor as if he’d never seen him before—which, really, wasn’t that far off the mark. “You really did change.”

The Doctor glanced at him. “You don’t say.” Words that would have been mocking and disdainful had they come from the face with the blue eyes and big ears were merely teasing, light and friendly.

“I mean,” Mickey said, rinsing out a glass, “your old face, the one with the ears—he wouldn’t ‘ave said anything, or stayed at all. Probably wouldn’t even have popped in for the visit in the first place.”

“Hm,” said the Doctor. “Suppose he wouldn’t have.”

“So do you change personalities too?” Mickey asked. “When you do the face-swapping thing.”

“Regeneration,” the Doctor corrected. “And yes. Mostly. Well. Sort of. Same man,” he gestured at himself, “but different. Same memories.”

“Sounds like somethin’ from a video game,” Mickey snorted. “And it makes no sense at all.”

The Doctor rolled his eyes. “Humans,” he scoffed, and that was a bit more familiar.

“Oi!” Mickey protested. “This human helped save your life!” The Doctor snorted, but he was grinning. “So,” Mickey said. “Do all of your lot have wings, too?”

The grin slid off of the Doctor’s face faster than water cascading from a duck. “No,” he said shortly, putting the glass down with force enough to rattle the dish rack. Before Mickey could say anything, he held out his hand, expression carefully veiled. “Pass me that salad bowl, will you?”

A portal to another universe. Any other time, he’d be more than pleased. Right now, he just wishes it had never existed in the first place.

Bloody Torchwood. Bloody Cybermen. Fucking _Daleks_. He’s gripping the wall and he wants to scream. He wants to rip the bloody pipe he’s clinging onto and beat every bloody Dalek shell into a pile of mush and parts. He wants to find Yvonne Hartman and scream at her until his throat’s raw and the sun’s burnt out (everything burns). He wants to close the portal and get Rose and get to the TARDIS and get away and he wants to _run_ , wants to runrunrunrunrunrunrunrun _runrun_ until he’s on his knees and he can’t run anymore, and then he wants to run some more.

His shimmer had fallen off. Of course it had. It was just the sort of thing that would happen to him. His wings are flapping wildly behind him, feathers being torn away by the pull of the portal, and generally doing a very bad job of being useful. He grips the pipe even tighter and if he can just _reach_ —

And then he sees her.

And he screams, and he doesn’t know what he’s saying anymore and she ignores him because she’s _Rose_ and they never listen do they and she’s got it and—

“ _Rose!_ ”

For the first time, he wishes he could actually fly.

Doomsday Clock. A metaphorical countdown to the catastrophic end of the world. She wonders idly, in the back of her mind, if this world has a Clock.

Her tears have long since run dry, but still she stands on the beach, staring with red-rimmed eyes at the empty space the Doctor had vanished from. The sun was setting, and she was beginning to shiver, but she didn’t move.

Sand crunched wetly behind her and she felt a soft hand on her shoulder. “Rose.” Mickey. “Rose, he’s gone.”

“I know.” Her voice cracked, worn and strain, throat raw from sobbing. She sniffed loudly, wrapping her arms around herself. “I know,” she said again, quieter.

_Rose Tyler_ —

God, they were idiots. _She_ was an idiot. Banter, talk about universes and suns, pregnancy scares, Daleks and Norway—why? So much time wasted, only to have it run out on the one moment that mattered.

_Time_.

He’d promised her all of time and space, and she’d ran after him. She’d sworn she’d be at his side forever, and, for a moment, she thought she could have. She thinks of him standing alone in the console room and feels like bursting into a wave of fresh tears.

“Rose,” Mickey said quietly. “You heard him. He’s not coming back.” Words that would have been overflowing with a paradoxical mix of barely-supressed glee and jealousy held only quiet comfort and silent understanding. He’d grown up, she realized, stomach twisting. They both had.

“I know,” she said again. She raised a hand, brushing the tips of her fingers over the slim leather cord hanging around her neck, then lowers it to her chest, where the fraying edges of a single brown feather brush against her skin.

_I know_.

Doomsday had already come and gone. What use was a clock, now?

She thinks hers just hit midnight.

Jack and the Doctor sat in silence, the light of the barrel fire flickering faintly in front of them. On the other side of the warehouse, Martha, lying on top of Jack’s coat and wrapped in the Doctor’s, her own jacket pillowed beneath her head, rolled over. Her brow was furrowed and he fists clenched, restless even in sleep.

Jack turned the Vortex Manipulator over in his hands, the Doctor still and silent next to him. “So,” he said.

The Doctor shifts ever so slightly. “What?”

“The Master.”

“I’ve already told you.”

“Barely,” Jack counters. The Doctor doesn’t answer, just twirls the modified TARDIS key around on its string. “I’ve never heard of him.”

“You wouldn’t have had,” the Doctor agreed, wrapping the cord around his wrist and idly fiddling with the key. Jack sighed, ruffling his hair.

“Doc, be honest with me,” he said. “Your plan—will it work?”

“It’d certainly make things easier for us if it did,” said the Doctor, now tossing the key into the air and catching it again.

“Yeah, but will it?” Jack asked. “And don’t make any bullshit up about working your way out of it. He’s not just any villain of the week, he’s another Time Lord—”

“Trust me Jack, I know,” the Doctor drawled sardonically, glancing at him out of the corner of his eye. “I know,” he muttered.

They fell back into silence.

“Does he have them too?” Jack asked after a few minutes.

“What?”

“Wings.”

The key fell from between the Doctor’s fingers and landed on the ground with a _clink_ that seemed to echo like the shot of a canon in the heavy silence. Wordlessly, Jack bent down and scooped it up before depositing it back in the Doctor’s hand. “Careful,” he said airily. “We’ve only got three. So,” he leaned forwards, elbows on his knees. “Does he?”

The Doctor glared at him. “Shout it a bit louder, why don’t you?” he said. “I don’t think the background characters in Martha’s dreams heard you.”

“She doesn’t know,” Jack deduced.

“It’s not exactly something I advertise,” the Doctor muttered, uncrossing his legs and propping his chin up on his hand, elbow resting on his leg. Jack didn’t miss the dirty look tossed in his direction, and he could almost imagine the hulking masses rising up behind the Doctor, flapping in agitation and annoyance.

_Why?_ he wanted to ask. _Are they wrong too? Is it easier not to think about them, the same way it’s easier not to look at me?_

_Did_ she _see them?_ he nearly asked.

“Come on, Doctor,” was what he said instead. “I’m not blind, or stupid. I know what a shimmer looks like, and, plus, Time Agent, remember? I’ve read about Gallifrey.”

“Evidently not enough,” the Doctor muttered.

“It’s not like there’s a lot of material on it,” Jack said.

The Doctor huffed quietly, staring into the dying embers of the fire. The glowing coals cast dark shadows across his face and, for a moment, with every bag beneath his eyes, his hollow cheeks, and dark, bottomless eyes thrown into sharp definition, the Time Lord looked every bit his true age. “Tell me, Jack,” he said. “Do you know why some Time Lords have wings?”

“No, but—”

The Doctor was on his feet in a flash, striding across the room and snatching up Martha’s laptop and the leftover chips.

“Well, then,” he said as Martha sat up, hair gorgeously mussed, blinking the sleep out of her eyes. “Better get cracking, then.”

Jack watches as he takes his coat back from Martha, tucking the laptop and the chips into one of his endless pockets and, all of a sudden, he feels like screaming. “Right,” he said, jaw tight, dusting off his own coat and pulling it on. “Okay. Let’s go.”

His skin crawled as he stepped closer. The Master’s skin seemed to flicker with every move he made, flashing in and out of existence like a cheap hologram, like misty clouds over crystal mountains, like smoke clearing over a charred forest, like cloth being pulled from a twisted, broken body, like like like—

His face seemed to flare like a lightning strike and the skull grinned a macabre leer. His bones crackled beneath the feeble illusion of life, sparking with electric flashes of ethereal blue artron energy, not-quite-wrong-but-never-right (no never right, never with him, but never quite with him either no matter how hard he tried) energy, energy broken down and folded in on itself, twisted against the very creature it was barely keeping alive.

Resurrection, he considered. Always tricky, disastrous when gone wrong.

He stared down at him and his eyes were dark, and heavy with the neverending pounding of the drums (drums, drums, _theywerereal_ why drums, why was it _onetwothreefouronetwothreefour_ drums?).

Wings that had once been carefully groomed and held high and lofted, a reveller of their own shame, a paradox in their own right, were scraggly and shaking. Feathers that had been dark and sleek were the same dead, dusty grey as his hair, hanging on to cracked, dry flesh like fractured sculptures carved out of sheets of ash. They quivered with every breath drawn the man who, in all ways but was, was dead (dead dead always dead always him take him no not him Champion). Near-bare barbs shuddered as if they would crumple to dust at any second.

A cold hand touched his cheek, and another landed on his neck. His eyes bore into his as he drew him close, their foreheads touching—chilled, lifeless flesh that crackled with life and cold skin thrumming with the double beat of icy lifeblood, death and life built on practicalities and technicalities. He let his eyes flutter shut and his mind cried out, reaching for the Master’s (contactcontactcontactcontactcontactcontactcontactcontactcontact _conta_ —), for a presence that was a presence even if it was a broken presence what did he care it was there _he_ was there it was always him he was broken too—

He gasped as a sharp _burn_ tore through the base of his neck. The Master drew back, grinning wickedly as he waved the shimmer in front of his face, the broken wires sparking, the light flickering frantically as it beeped shrilly once, twice, and—

He howled with pain, squeezing his eyes shut as his wings burst free, arching his back as new joints twisted beneath his bonds, pressing pulling reaching _burning_. He barely heard Wilf gasp over the rustling and flapping and he wrenched his eyes open, locking on his (why why why _whywhywhy_ ), and that guard is one inch too tall.

_“Donna never mentioned wings.”_

_“She never saw them.”_

_“Yeah, guess so. That Master bloke had ‘em too.”_

_“Mm.”_

_“Can you fly?”_

_“No.”_

_“They’re beautiful things, Doc.”_

_“Huh.”_

_“No, really, they are! Are they—do all Time Lords have—”_

“No _.”_

_“. . . Doctor?”_

_“Sorry, I just. . . sorry.”_

_“Ah, don’t wor—”_

_“No, it’s just—sorry, I. . ."_

Ragged tips of broken, bedraggled feathers left a steady trail of inky vermillion in their wake. Larger shards and shattered grains of broken glass littered the ground, clinging to his hair, his clothes, and the layers of feathers hanging on to the wings that hung limply from his shoulders, dragging across the ground. They were near-bare, what feathers that had remained after his plummet from the ship shattered and stained burnt, bloody crimson.

Regeneration did little for what was never meant to be.

The cuts and gashes littering his skin had healed and he could feel the burn that went beyond skin-deep sinking into him, every cell of his body screaming with the effort of holding back the inevitable change. His hearts are slow, impossibly so, and every fragment of his being except himself is screaming at him to let go. His back was straight, his head up as he took slow, measured steps. His breaths were laboured, each one rattling and burning in his chest like—

_Broken glass, burning skies, everything burns_.

He stopped, eyes fixed on the empty space before him.

“Doctor?” Wilf hadn’t said a word since the Doctor had let him out of the chamber, and hadn’t touched him since he’d hugged him afterwards, crying silently into his suit, but now he placed a hand on his elbow, looking up at him with his brow furrowed.

“TARDIS,” he muttered. His lips were unblemished, scarring from years of battles and chewing gone, wiped away as if they’d never been there at all, but he still felt as if they were dried and cracking. His throat was raw, and the single word scraped at the inside of the throat as he forced it out, and he felt like he was regurgitating a chunk of burning coal. Forcing himself to press the buttons of the screwdriver and bring the TARDIS back into sync hurt more than he could have imagined, invisible burns and skin that buzzed with energy that should never be held back for so long screaming at him to stop, stop, _stop_. The high-pitched whine of the sonic shot through his skull and he nearly collapsed to his knees right then and there.

“Let’s get you home,” he whispered, placing a hand controls, and he wasn’t sure whether he was talking to her or Wilf.

. The ship hummed in his mind, a gentle melody, a familiar one, dancing through his mind. An old worker’s tune, one that would occasionally drift through the fields and mountains and burnt orange skies and through an open window and calm a burning, frantic mind. His fingers brushed the console and the rough coral soothed—

_Him?_

“Home,” he said again, gripping a lever and pulling it down. It gave with ease he was sure wouldn’t have existed even when the ship was new, and landed with such lightness that he almost feared they hadn’t moved at all. But, no, there it was, the faint smell of car exhaust and wilting garden roses, the sounds of children laughing and bikes rattling over uneven concrete, of Friday afternoon television and the distant blares of car horns and _life_.

“Doctor,” Wilf said, voice impossibly quiet. The Doctor looked up into the old man’s eyes, bright as any human he’d ever met but impossibly darker, and heavy with shadows that hadn’t been there that morning (there’s no true way to compare suffering, not really, because who can know it better than yourself?), and a spike that has nothing to do with the radiation slowly killing him from the inside-outside out-in pierces through his heart.

“I would,” he said suddenly.

“What?”

“Be proud.” The Doctor’s grip tightened on the console, nails pressing painfully against the solid unit, palms searing with a painfully reassuring burn of relief. “If you were my dad.” He let his head hang, taking a deep breath that felt like a gulp of acid as his vision swam. “I wasn’t lying,” he said, voice faint. His grip tightened, his knuckles whitened, and he looked up sharply, eyes burning like the fire waiting to consume him.

“They’re not,” he rasped. “Beautiful. Or good.”

“Them wings?” Wilf stares at him in bewilderment. “Doc—”

“Wilfred,” the Doctor said. “Please, listen. They’re—” he took a rattling breath, head pounding. “They’re punishment.” He forced the words out through gritted teeth (he’s not sure if it’s pain or reluctance, because he swore he’d never tell—swore he’d never say, never admit to his greatest shame, even when Jo and the Brigadier would spend hours helping him tuck the long silver feathers away under the heavy black coat, or when Adric rattled on and on about different species around the universe with wings or feathers, or when he’d sit by Susan’s bed late at night and brush away her tears as she clutched at her own inky feathers in her sleep). “They’re—Time Lords aren’t supposed to leave Gallifrey.” He wet his lips (a familiar motion—he wonders if he’ll still do that in an hour). “We’re—well, there’s a lot of things we’re not supposed to do. There were rules. Laws. Lots of them. Those who left—renegades—they—we—” He clenched his teeth against a sudden stab of pain that felt more like a blunt blow from within than anything else (he’s burning up and he wants to laugh, because it’s just _so familiar_ ). “They don’t fly,” he hissed. “They don’t do anything, and we’re not supposed to—physiologically, it just doesn’t _work_ , and—” He gulps, and he realizes that his palms are coated in a layer of sweat that has nothing to do with the radiation. “And they never leave.” _Unlike us_.

He doesn’t look up for a long time—too long. He’s sure Wilf has left when, suddenly, there are arms wrapped around him and he’s being cradled in a way he’s never felt before. “Doctor,” Wilf muttered, and the Doctor thinks of Donna and Sylvia. “I won’t pretend to understand anything ‘bout your planet,” he said, voice low and gentle. “I don’t think I even understood half of what you say in the first place. But, Doctor—” the arms around him suddenly tighten. “Listen—I don’t know much about you, but if there’s one thing that Do—both of you made clear as day, it’s that you’d sooner pluck out your own eyeballs than pick up a gun. I just think—” The arms loosen and Wilf took a step back, suddenly looking faintly abashed. “Well, Doc—if you were willing to take up arms ‘gainst your own people, well. . . does it really matter, to you or anyone else, what Gallifrey thinks? ‘Cause,” he said, tilting his chin up stubbornly, and the Doctor can suddenly see the boy who broke the law to serve his country. “Me, personally, Doc—and your friends, ’m sure. . . I don’t care ‘bout wings, or laws, or what some villain with a metal glove thinks. I—well, I think you’re a great man.”

The Doctor stares at him as he finished his speech, and Wilf looked away, the grating beneath him squeaking shifted his weight awkwardly. “Come on,” he finally said, turning away and walking towards the door. “Let’s get you home.”

_I’d be proud if—_

_Be proud—_

_If I’d—_

_Proud if—_

_If I—_

_I’d be proud—_

_I’d—_

He stands in the doorway of the TARDIS and watches as Wilf grabs Sylvia, pulling her into a tight hug and burying his face in his shoulder. He sees another young man—Shaun—rush out of the house, face pale, and grab both of them, hears him asking Wilfred where he’s been, if he’s alright, telling him that Donna—

He sees a flash of red hair and feels a familiar consciousness prick the edge of his awareness (familiar but so different, younger and frailer, shallower and naïve, unburdened by the centuries upon millennia of experience and life and compassion and _goodness_ he had once clung onto like a lifeline and—).

And then he’s shutting the door and he’s gone, swirling through the Vortex. It calls to him, whispering promises and secrets he’s heard in the back of his mind since he was eight years old. It pulls at him, and every particle of his body is begging to let go and vanish into it, to just _stop_ and let a new face take the burden and bear the mantle and—

A feather drifts loose and lands lightly on the ground next to his foot. He stares down at it for a moment—ragged and scorched and snapped nearly entirely in half, the bottom bit hanging onto the top by less than a fibre, resting half-on the toe of his scuffed, dirty Converse—and watches as a wisp of golden energy curls off of it and vanishes into the air.

_Not yet_.

He puts a hand on the console and pulls a lever and he goes to collect his reward.

He doesn’t bother hiding the wings.

_I would_ —

Flakes of snow drift in after him, melting as soon as they hit the scorching air inside (there’s no one left to protect and he can burn). Droplets of water land on the red-hot grille beneath his feet and vanish with quiet hisses.

_I don’t care ‘bout wings, or laws, or what some villain with a metal glove thinks._

A bolt of pain arcs through him and he bends double, grabbing onto a coral strut with a shout of pain, squeezing his eyes shut against the searing agony. The air wavers in the heat and the coral is blisteringly hot beneath his fingers and he feels at home.

He closes his eyes and runs a hand over the console, whispering a silent goodbye.

_I—well, I think you’re a great man._

He remembers Wilf and Donna and Gallifrey and the Citadel and the House (he remembers running hand-in-hand through familiar red pastures) and a brother who was never quite fully there and the Academy (he remembers a boy) and ten names he can never say again and one he can’t remember (he remembers a River) and three Presidents and he remembers falling. He remembers a blue box and a primitive planet and cavemen and a creature in a metal shell. He remembers a gun in his hands and blood on his face and a Wolf. He remembers hands and laughter and chips and Time ripping him apart from the inside out. He remembers Daleks and Doomsday and four beats and a woman who walked the Earth and a man who was wrong in all the ways except those that mattered. He remembers his best friend and a Whitepoint Star and broken, twisted love.

_Does it really matter, to you or anyone else, what Gallifrey thinks?_

Time swirls around him and there’s another voice in his head, whispering his thoughts alongside himself, an eerie echo in a cavern of memories that were and are to be.

He’s ready.

He’s not.

He’s waiting.

He couldn’t help but think that death should never be so permanent.

_How many seconds—_

_How many—_

_How—_

_Who—_

He doesn’t want to go.

_How many seconds for the man who walks in eternity?_

Sometimes, because they were built by humans, and humans are imperfect, but that’s okay, a pipe will be blocked.

There are many things a person could do in this situation. The first, and most obvious, would be to unblock the pipe. There are many ways they could do this. They could stick their arm in the pipe and try to pull whatever it is that’s blocking it out, but this method is often messy and dangerous, and undesirable overall. Another would be to put something else down the pipe and try to pull the offending blockage out. Yet another method would be to request the aid of a more capable individual—a friend, family member, roommate, polite neighbour, or even a professional, if one doesn’t mind looking ridiculous while trying to explain to a handyman why they thought it necessary to call a plumbing company to remove a handful of vegetable peels from the kitchen sink.

There are many things a person could do in this situation. However, one thing that most people tend to advise against is letting the pipe keep filling up. There are many different types of inconveniences in the world, and a blockage is of one of the more stubborn breeds. There are many things a blockage will do—making a sink fill up with dirty water, stunting day-to-day activities, and causing bad smells are all excellent examples. However, one thing that a blockage absolutely _will not do_ is move.

The fuller the pipe gets, the more stubborn the blockage becomes. And, eventually, because the pipe is full and the water has nowhere else to go, it will swell.

And, because they were built by humans, and humans are imperfect, _but that’s okay_ , it will burst.

(There’s no one left to protect.)

_“Help her.”_

_“Everything has it’s time, and everything dies.”_

_and what about you_

When he wakes up, they are whole and he flies.

**Author's Note:**

> First part of a longer series that'll probably be showing up sometime in the next three to twenty-eight years.
> 
> Find me on tumblr [doritoFace1q](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/doritoface1q)


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